Lee spiked in fight to save Brooklyn

The film director Spike Lee attacks gentrification of the borough yet stands accused of profiting from it himself

The director’s father Bill with his wife, Susan, in Fort Greene (New York Times / Redux / eyevine)

AROUND the corner from Spike Lee’s childhood home in the Fort Greene area of
Brooklyn, New York, one of the latest additions to a rapidly changing urban
landscape is a shop called Corkscrew Wines, which has a sign outside
promising its customers: “Côtes du Rhône warms the soul.”

Leroy Benton, a silver-bearded African-American pensioner who has lived in
Fort Greene most of his life, surveyed the sign last week and grunted
morosely: “It ain’t warming my soul, buddy. Not at 20 bucks a bottle.”

Benton belongs to a growing army of native Brooklyners wilting from an
onslaught of hipster coffee shops, European-style bistros, gluten-free
supermarkets and the conversion of crumbling local homes into shiny
multimillion-dollar apartments.

Or as the newly renovated Clinton Lofts building proclaims on a billboard near
Myrtle Avenue: “Chic living; marble baths; smart investment.”

In short, Brooklyn is suffering from the same gentrification upheavals that
have transformed countless